


Shadows of Our Fathers

by Ingridarcher



Category: Warcraft, Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingridarcher/pseuds/Ingridarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the Horde and Alliance worked together to depose the corrupt and power-hungry warchief Garrosh Hellscream, Thrall's daughter Tar'ash must grow up in a steadily darkening world.<br/>This story was written before, and hence disregards, the announced events of WoD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on characters from Warcraft which is Blizzard's and all that blah blah et cetera...  
> This story disregards all lore after Warlords of Draenor, or if you'd rather, consider in an AU in which Garrosh Hellscream is never liberated from his trial, but instead sentenced and locked away.

The air felt like it was cooking her alive.

The hut was small, hidden deep in the untamed wilds of the Twilight Highlands, far from sight and sound of her clansmen. Its close, yellowed walls were decorated with caramel-colored furs and scarlet tapestries that, through her sweat-blurred eyes, looked like fire burning around her. Her bulbous stomach boiled like an egg being cooked solid. She was dizzy with the feverish heat and pain, groaning and growling and clawing at the furs beneath her.

Hours it had been; hours of sickly-sweet, encouraging words from her midwife and of straining the muscles from her stomach down, and of wave after wave of biting pain. The orcish woman at her side had tried to sooth her, taking a damp cloth to her forehead. It had been cool at first. Now it was lukewarm and stifling.

In the past months, the Dragonmaw’s chieftain had flown between feeling awe and love for the thing in her belly, and feeling as if it were some terrible parasite planted in her and slowly eating her away. The moment she couldn’t deny to herself any longer that she was with child, she’d locked herself in her room and sat with a small, surgical-sharp poniard clutched in her shaking hand.

_I cannot afford this,_ she’d thought, _to grow round and soft and raise a child when I have my people to lead._ And the questions...it wasn’t the ones asked to her with words, but with their eyes that she feared most. She could not take the shame of waddling before her advisors, giving orders to her pure and noble warriors with a bastard in her belly.

Zaela had cut a thin, jagged line of red just below her navel. The pain had been far away; the memories, too close. His amber eyes softening when he asked to look on her; ducking guards and dignitaries to rush into the woods, laughing like teenagers; the feeling of his weight pushing her bare back into the cool earth and wet leaves. Her teeth pressed together as she tried to will away thoughts of the hands that had stroked her knee under feast tables being shackled together. The child’s sire, banished, disgraced...and never coming back to her. She had stabbed the poniard into the thick furs of her bed and roared and wept and tore her room apart. Then she had stood, straitened, and lead.

She faced them all, even as it grew impossible to hide that she was with child; she ruled with cunning and honor. She shuffled the remnants of her clan back to their longtime home in the Twilight Highlands, and with her implacable countenance dared anyone to judge her unfit to be the Dragonmaw’s chieftain. She carried the poniard at her hip to remind her of her choice, and would stroke its hilt any time she saw questions in her men’s eyes.

Begrudgingly she had accepted a midwife, Yrokka, to care for her in the late months of her pregnancy. She remembered, when the orcess had first inspected her body to ensure both mother and child were healthy, that Yrokka had seen the pale, wormlike scar just underneath her navel. The midwife had asked Zaela no questions; at least, not out loud.

The time was coming. Yrokka was commanding her, telling her when to breath, when to push. The pain made Zaela obey. It was not like the pain of battle; bruises and cuts. It was a primordial pain that no man could know. Yrokka commanded her to push, a big push, and Zaela grasped the sweat-soaked furs in her claws and roared with the effort, as if she could frighten the thing from her loins. She wanted it gone. She wanted this fel thing out of her.  

“I see the head!” the midwife announce with a glee that made Zaela want to strike her. Yrokka asked for one more, one more big push and it would be over, and even though the chieftain thought she would pass out from the pain, the strain, the boiling heat, she clenched her jaw and screeched, pushing with all her great might. She felt it slide out of her like a fish, and in the relief she found her exhaustion. Now that the deed was done, she felt too weak to even lift her head. Far away, as she felt that she might drift into dreaming, she heard Yrokka squeal with joy. “It’s a boy, Chieftain! A little boy! A good slap and he’ll be breathi-”

The sound tore Zaela from her hazed journey to unconsciousness. It was an ear-splitting cacophony, a shocking stab into the brain. It sounded as a knife tearing into flesh felt; a hot poker of an agonizing wail. Yrokka nearly dropped the newborn to the floor from the sound, instead managing barely to set him down on the bed before falling to her knees, hands over her ears. The first cry of Zaela’s child brought into life should have sounded sweet, not brought such pain, but the thing howled on heedlessly, its lungs unfortunately healthy.

The dragonmaw chieftain had moments ago felt like she could hardly move, the wet fur of the bed clinging to her sweat-greased body. Now, she had to lift herself up on her elbows, an effort more straining than any battle, and lean forward to grasp her son. She saw on the floor before her Yrokka, crouched with her knees to her breast and her hands on her ears. Below the expression of pain on the orcess’ face, Zaela spied something else.

_She knows._

Zaela lifted her sinewy arm up and extended her razor claws, pinching the nipple of a heavy breast until the hard flesh gave and black blood bulged out from the twin holes. She lifted the shrieking child, wincing, and brought him to her. When his small, dark lips found the blood and milk, the wail faltered. The child gurgled, then suckled and was silent.

She sighed, not only with the feeling of strange, muffled, ringing silence that followed after the terrible sound of her child’s first breaths, but with a sudden rush of maternal comfort. This was a right thing, to take her son to her breast; to nourish him and care for him. For her to protect him from all harm. Zaela heard the dulled sound of Yrokka getting to her feet and moving to her side. With her eyes the midwife asked Zaela the question, and with a stern look, the chieftain answered it. Yrokka’s mouth opened; her lip quivered. Zaela’s expression was unchanged.

“I will never speak of this to anyone, chieftain,” said the midwife in a breathless, muffled voice. Zaela looked back down at the babe as it suckled hungrily at her grey breast, dark blood coloring the boy’s lips black.

“No...you won’t,” she whispered, her voice a deadly calm.

Neither the midwife’s flesh nor her voice gave any resistance as the poniard sank deep into her belly. She looked to her chieftain, forlorn and disbelieving, futilely grasping at Zaela’s strong, sinewy fist as it clutched the blade hard and slid it up the orcess’ middle to her ribcage. Zaela had kept the poniard by her side, thinking this moment, more than ever, she would need to reassure herself that her decision had been the right one. If only she had known that one look at her son’s face would have steeled her resolve in a way deeper than any trinket could. Yrokka teetered, her eyes rolled back, her knees buckled, and she slumped onto the dirt floor of the small, sweltering hut. Zaela’s eyes hadn’t left her child.

 

 


	2. His Square Jaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years after cooler heads reclaimed the Horde and exiled the warmonger Garrosh Hellscream, Thrall and his family pay a visit to an old friend in Stormstout Brewery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend felt I was very mean to Tari in this intro. She obviously hasn't read the other chapters yet B)

_Gren,_

_You told me to write you when you went to Nagrand so now I am!_

Tar’ash chewed on the end of her bamboo quill as she thought slowly on how to continue her letter, her small, sharklike teeth leaving angry bitemarks. Her elbows rested on the writing desk the brewers had provided for her upon her very insistent request when she and her family had arrived. After 20 long seconds of expressive thinking, she continued.

_Right now Papa and Mama and Garad and me are in Pandaria! It is really pretty and all the pandaren are very nice and have a lot of stories. Did you know that the Pandaren who joined the Horde and Alliance came from the back of a giant turtle? I want to go there!_

She paused again after that, looking down at her large, scrawled handwriting with great pride and approval. Tar’ash had learned her runes at an early age, something most orcs never learned at all, and she was quite proud despite her abysmal handwriting. She was glad Gren could read and write as well; in fact, she was so glad she felt she ought to tell him so.

_I am glad you can read and write so that we can talk in letters since you are not allowed to leave while you’re training and I can’t even come visit either. That’s so dumb! Papa says Saurfang is really great and I know a lot of good stories about him but I think he has dumb rules about training._

“You writing to your boyfriend again, Tari?” asked a familiar, scratchy voice from the doorway behind her. Tar’ash swiftly covered her _very private_ letter with a stack of the pandaren’s delicate, translucent parchment and spun on her brother, scowling.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Garad, you’re stupid!” she howled at him, her spine curved in challenge. Her brother, 4 years her senior and already quite tall, only laughed at her and tugged at her wild, wiry, dark-chestnut hair. She grabbed onto the back of her chair to steady herself and kicked him hard. He only laughed again, smiling his wide, clever smile.

Despite his black hair and green skin Garad looked like their mother, with full lips and soft, dreamy eyes. It was unfortunate for poor Tari, who sadly resembled their square-jawed father, a third tusk already peaking out over her top lip. Her features were pronounced, her skin a dull brown, her frame tall and wiry, her head overlarge and her sapphire eyes even more so. Tari was, at 9 years old, starting to notice that she was not, and likely would never be, pretty. She took it better than most girls her age might.

“And yet, you hide your letter...” Garad said coyly, stepping over to the desk and using deft fingers to slide the papers from atop her scrawled note. She dove for it.

“Dooo-ooon’t!” she whined, leaning over the letter, claws sinking into the parchment protectively. Garad chuckled, then the sound twisted up into a squeaking pitch, and her brother darkened. Tar’ash laughed maliciously. Garad wrinkled his nose at her then spun and wrapped an arm around her neck, digging his knuckles into her scalp.

“I’ll teach you to laugh at me!” he growled jovially, and Tar’ash’s arms clawed at him futilely as she laughed and howled for him to release her. The clearing of a throat interrupted them. They both turned to the doorway to find their father’s imposing figure folding his thick, green arms and giving them a most serious look. Garad swallowed. Tar’ash chewed her lower lip and looked at the ground.

“Garad? Perhaps, in my old age, I’m not recalling it correctly, but I’d thought that I had asked you to come and fetch your sister for our dinner with Chen. Did she refuse? Is that why you seem to be wrestling her into submission?” A thick, black brow raised up at her older brother.

“She started it,” Garad accused with nothing close to a straight face. The wrinkles forming at the edges of their father’s blue eyes belied his serious expression. His frown was slowly twisting into a smile, and soon Tari was sure they were not at trouble at all.

“Garad’s voice cracked again,” she revealed, immediately covering her mouth to hide her huge grin.

“Tari!” Garad protested, but as he did the last syllable cracked and pitched up, and then both father and daughter roared with laughter. Garad at last broke, being far less stubborn than Tar’ash about such things, laughing with them and covering his face with embarrassment. At last, their father calmed his mirth and beckoned them with a meaty hand.

“Come on, you two, Mr. Stormstout awaits us,” he rumbled jovially, stepping from the doorway to let them pass, his pale, burlap robes shuffling and the huge, heavy beads at his throat clinking with the motion. Garad, recovering himself and putting on the serious face of a young diplomat, strode past their father, Go’el. Tar’ash was still trying to shuffle out of her chair.

“Do you need help, little one?” her father asked her gently as she hopped off, leaning against the back of the chair for balance.

“No, I’m alright,” she answered, reaching with some difficulty for her crutch, which she’d set against the side of the table. With a grunt she tucked it under her arm, grasping the handle with comforting familiarity, and hobbling out of the doorway past her father. He eyed for a moment her desk, and his lips thinned slightly upon spotting the name writ there in Tari’s large, bold hand.

_Gren._

Sighing, he watched his little daughter head down the paper-lined hallway of the brewery, then slid the door shut behind him and followed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is this young man she's writing letters to? Papa Thrall certainly seems displeased...


	3. The Mok'Nathal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash hears a rumor that a Mok'Nathal is living near the brewery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After writing this chapter, I promptly went out for Dim Sum.

The table was covered in plates, and the plates were covered in food.

Tar’ash patted the back of her hand with her chopsticks in a quick rhythm while wiggling her foot, anxiously eying every item: steaming plates of flat, thick noodles drenched in a thin, black sauce; shumai and bao; a whole duck with crispy, glistening skin; fried wonton; salty soups in giant, ornamented bowls; woks of coffee-black meat and emerald-colored vegetables, glittering with a sugary coating; platters with whole fish wreathed in peppers and leaks; turnip cakes and dumplings; terrine’s with ribs half-submerged in broth; a great, red crab, its barbed limbs bent out off the plate and onto the table; pots and pots of tea, and bowls and bowls and bowls of rice.

Dozens of smells hit her, as did the delicious memory of the tastes that went with them. Tar’ash spied her favorite item all the way across the table: steamed pork buns, pale and cloudlike, filled with meat smothered in a sweet, viscous, crimson sauce. She wanted to reach out across 5 dishes to snatch them all for herself, but she knew she had to keep her hands in her lap until all the guests had arrived.

They filtered in one-by-one, some bringing in more food or pushing in carts of their signature brews and offering them to the guests already seated. Garad reached for one, which earned him an admonishing look from his mother. He sheepishly replaced it. The room they were in was open on one side, leading out to the garden. Dusk was settling in, painting the smooth stones and jutting reeds the color of coral and plum; a weeping willow’s viney branches moved lazily with the wind, brushed the crystal surface of the water.

Indoors, however, the lanterns were lit and it was all rich, bright reds and yellows. Octagonal windows capped each side of the large room. Pale wood panelling halved the painted red walls, and scrolls and watercolors surrounded them on all sides. Tari’s black-lacquered chair was ornate, with a hard red cushion, and all the dishes were white porcelain painted with delicate blue patterns.

At last, Tari heard the warm rumble of Chen Stormstout’s voice, bellowing a welcome to them all. She stood with her family and bowed, and Chen admonished them all for it, giving them each a warm hug. He hugged Tari so tight she couldn’t breath, but she didn’t mind much. Chen was always affectionate, joyful, and enthusiastic, and he had made the brewery one of Tar’ash’s favorite places to visit since she could remember.

“Sit, sit, eat, what are you waiting for?” he asked them laughing as he took his seat, and in a wave the guests began reaching forward to fill their plates. The flurry of arms blocked the way to the steamed pork buns, so instead Tar’ash extended her chopsticks to the flat rice noodles in front of her. They kept slithering out from the grasp of her sticks, and it eventually took both hands holding them to get a single noodle on her plate. The table sun around, and she looked expectantly back towards the weaved bowl that had held the steamed pork buns, then her heart fell. It was utterly empty. She audibly sighed, looking despondent, and half-heartedly reached for a square of rice wrapped in a lotus leaf.

“Psst,” hissed Garad, elbowing her. She looked up at him. “What’s that thing over there called?” he asked her, pointing with his chopsticks. Tar’ash squinted at the dish across the table.

“Those are fish rolls, I think,” she answered squinting, then turned back when she thought she felt something tumbling onto her plate in front of her. She looked down to see three fat, white pork buns on her plate, then looked up to see Garad grinning at her. She grinned back and hugged him thankfully. He mussed her hair, then leaned in to whisper something to her.

“Did you know there’s a Mok’Nathal in the mountains east of here?” he asked her. Tari’s large eyes widened and her brows reached for her hairline.

“Really?” she had meant to ask, but she had just taken a huge bite of a pork bun, so it came out sounding more like “Uhweawhee?” The girl leaned in, far more interested in Garad’s story than in the dry discussion their parents were having with Chen about how his family was doing. Garad nodded to her, making one last look to make sure no one was listening.

“Yeah, one of the brewers down in the wheelhouse told me,” Garad went on, “She said there’s a secluded monastery up there. She visits them sometimes on the way to the Granary and says she saw a huge man there, too big to be an orc but too small to be an ogre. Tusks; tan skin; armed to the teeth, Mei Li said. She’s seen him skulking around between the trees.”

“Wow!” Tari exclaimed, “I wonder if he knows Mr. Rexxar...”

“Just call him Rexxar, Tari,” Garad said in a somehow exhausted voice, “Putting ‘Mr.’ in front of it makes you sound like a baby.”

“Shut up! I am not a baby!” Tar’ash proclaimed loudly, pushing her elder brother hard, causing a cacophony of clanking ceramic bowls and chopsticks. The whole table stopped and looked at them. Tari shrank down in her seat at her mother’s admonishing look. Garad’s smile hardly faltered. There was a long stretch of silence, and just as the Chen turned to continue what he was saying to her mother, Tar’ash exclaimed “Is it true that there’s a Mok’Nathal at the monastery nearby?”

“Tar’ash!” snapped Aggra, her brown face twisted in anger, “You are a guest in this house. Do not interrupt people while they are speaking.”

“They weren’t-”

“ _Tar’ash!_ ” Aggra hissed harshly, “Take your plate and go to your chamber.”

“But-” Tari began to protest.

“Now!” her mother roared over the silence of the room. For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the low rumble of the waterwheel, far off, and the sound of a fountain in the garden. Tari stared her mother down with as big a scowl as she could muster, then loudly collected her plate and slipped off of her chair, leaning her back against the table until her crutch was firmly under her arm and in her hand. The white-and-blue porcelain bowl and wooden chopsticks balanced precariously on her plate as she marched towards the door.

“Do you need help with that, Tari?” her father asked her in a voice so kind that it annoyed her.

“NO!” Tar’ash bellowed at him, wishing he had come to her defense. She shot Garad an accusatory look as well; he mouthed the word “sorry,” and Tar’ash hardened herself against the apology. She left the silent room behind her, losing one of her pork buns to the floor.

 


	4. Shards of Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash overhears a conversation her parents have about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you just love eavesdropping on people when they're talking about you?

The nightstand went first.

Leaning heavily against her crutch, Tari grabbed the small piece of furniture and tilted it over until it clattered to the floor, the empty drawer sliding halfway out. Then she knocked over her chair, her face twisted into scowl, her eyes threatening tears. She swept the quills and parchment and blocks of ink off her desk, threw her pillows across the room, kicked the tall dresser and the low bed. She grunted and howled, stamped her foot and slammed her crutch against the wooden walls. At last a sob burst out, and she fell onto her mattress, slamming her fists against the bedding.

The window in her room was low, wrought with black, metal beams woven into intricate geometric patterns. The panes of glass in them were thick, warping the view outside. It was facing east, Tari realized, at the stupid mountain Garad had told her about. She got angry again, scooting herself up to the edge of the bed and glaring at the mountain as if all this had been its fault. With one hand, she made a fist, then half-heartedly slammed it against one of the window’s panes.

It hurt her knuckles, and the glass seemed to bounce her fist back at her, but Tari set her jaw; her anger made her stubborn. She balled her fingers into a fist again, and this time hit the glass harder. She winced and brought her knuckles up to her mouth, sucking on them. This made her even angrier, and she went after the window with full force this time, hitting at again and again, each time harder than the last, not realizing she was crying out in rage with each hit.

Tari knew she should not have been as surprised as she was when the glass shattered. It was not the pain, she hardly felt the shards stabbing into her hand; it was the sound of it breaking, the give when her fist went through it. For a few minutes, Tari just sat there, staring at her russet-colored hand as the blood trickled down to the crook of her arm. She didn’t cry; instead, she grabbed her crutch, got to her feet, and walked calmly out of the room to find her parents, holding her perforated hand out to her side, rolling it to keep the blood from dripping on the floor.

They could still be eating, but Tar’ash would try their room first; she was pretty sure she’d only get in more trouble if she walked into their dinner with a bloody hand. Their voices as she approached proved it not to be so; she almost pulled back the sliding paper door when she heard what her parents were talking about.

“I just thought you were too hard on her,” her father said gently. Tari could see from their silhouettes through the paper walls that he was seated.

“Well, one of us has to be,” her mother returned, not unkindly, “You cannot keep treating her like a child, Go’el.” She could see her mother was slowly dressing down for bed across the room, peeling off her shaman’s robes and taking out some of her jewelry.

“She _is_ a child,” her father answered. Tari was very sure now that they were talking about her, “We should allow her to be one while she still can. She’ll have enough responsibilities when she grows up.”

“She’s not _going_ to grow up if you don’t discipline her. How is she going to handle those responsibilities if we don’t show her now?” Aggra had turned to her mate, leaning back against the vanity. “We got lucky with Garad; he’s becoming an adult on his own, but Tar’ash is different, she needs guidance.”

Tari thought she heard padding footsteps coming down the hall, and she chewed her lip; she wanted to hear the rest of what they were saying, but if anyone found her out of her room and bleeding, she was sure they would take her in to see her parents immediately. She looked around desperately, the footsteps coming closer. Across the hall she saw an alcove with a small shrine, smoke from incense curling up into the cool air and then dissipating.

With surprising swiftness, Tar’ash hopped across the hall and managed to huddle into the alcove before a round-bellied Pandaren carrying an enormous barrel over his shoulder turned down the corner and walked past her. When he was gone she sighed in relief, then pricked her ears back towards her parents’ conversation.

“She deserves a childhood,” her father was saying, “not to be...locked up in a room and do only what she’s told.” Tari could see her mother’s posture soften, and when she spoke her voice was gentler.

“Is that what this is about?” she asked, padding across the room to stroke his hair. His thick hand reached up to her hip. Tar’ash had to strain to hear Aggra’s next words, a raspy whisper, “It’s not the same thing. We are her family, Go’el, not her owners.”

It took a moment for Tari to realize what her mother meant; her father, Go’el, had been raised as the property of a human named Blackmoore. Back then he had been called “Thrall”—a human word for “slave.”

“It’s just...I never got to _be_ a kid, Aggra. Ever since Vol'jin announced Garad as his successor to Warchief, it just feels like he’s growing up too fast, and Tari...yes, she’s outspoken and boisterous, but I _love_ that about her. I don’t want to punish her for being herself.”

“No punishment could stop Tar’ash from being herself,” Aggra said in a cheerful tone, “but she _is_ going to become a woman one day, and it’s our responsibility to make her ready for that. Sometimes, that means being hard on her.”

Tar’ash’s father, most suddenly, pulled Aggra against him, pressing his forehead to her stomach and sighing. “You’re right...” he admitted.

“I always am,” Aggra answered, and Tari could hear the smile in her words. Tari bit her lip, holding her aching hand, not liking the end of this conversation, but feeling now might be the time to go inside.

She made to step forward when her father said, “There’s something else...” Tari froze, and her mother gave no answer, waiting for Thrall to finish. “When I went to get her for dinner...she was writing a letter to Zaela’s boy.”

Tari’s heart jumped in her chest; he was talking about her letter to Gren. Her mother took a step back.

“You told her she was not to do so, didn’t you?” Aggra asked him sharply, and Tari got a knot in her stomach. Her father’s head inclined. “Go’el...you cannot condone her befriending that boy.”

“She has so few orcish friends, Aggra, and he-” Thrall began, but his mate cut him off.

“I will not have it!” she snarled, “Not my daughter!” Tar’ash’s heart sank. Her father had warned her, when she had first met Gren in Orgrimmar, to stay clear of him. This, of course, only made her want to know him more. She'd met Gren after chasing off 4 boys who had been beating him up. They'd run off, yelling at her that her parents should have drowned her when she was born because of her leg. She had, for the first time, managed to call upon the spirits of water to heal Gren's many cuts and bruises. Gren was quiet and reserved, but Tari liked that about him. He listened to her, _really_ listened instead of smiling and nodding and waiting for her to be done speaking like the adults all did. She hated the idea of being unable to write him or see him again.

“We shouldn’t punish the son for the sins of the father...” Thrall said, half-heartedly. Tar’ash furrowed her brow, confused; she did not know who Gren’s father was, she realized.

“Truly? Is that what you told yourself when you handed the Horde over to Garrosh Hellscream? That he should not be punished for what his father had done? The orc that killed Cairne, that decimated the Proudmoore woman’s kingdom, that had Vol’jin murdered in _cold blood_? You should have killed him when you had the chance, just as Zaela should have killed that boy the moment he slithered out of her womb-”

“Aggralan!” Thrall said sharply, “Don’t say such things about a child.”

“He is not just some child. That family is _poison_ , Go’el, especially for you. I will not have my daughter fall victim to it as you have.”

“There’s no proof-”

“Anyone with eyes has proof!” Aggra roared, and Tari could see her gripping Thrall’s shoulder, her posture bent in anger, “You will tear up that letter and discipline your daughter, for once! I will not allow her to correspond with that demon-child!”

Tar’ash’s anger had boiled again to the surface; she squeezed the wrist of her bloody hand and stalwartly deciding she would not ask her parents for help. She readjusted her crutch, not wanting to hear any more, and hobbled down the hall as quick and quiet as she could muster. She had, with the help of her older brother, absconded from keeps and castles many times undetected by her parents; getting out of the brewery was easy compared to sneaking out of Grommash Hold. Slipping into the garden and then out through the garden gate, Tar’ash paused a moment, trying to think of where they would not come looking for her. Her eyes turned eastward, to a green patch of mountains. She bit her lip.

That would show them. If there was a Mok’Nathal in the mountains, she would find him.

 


	5. A Flash of Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash, angry with her parents for wanting her to sever communication with her friend, Gren, leaves the brewery in search for the Mok'Nathal that supposedly lives on a mountain to the east.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm? Why, no, I didn't see anything...

She dropped the shards of glass into the water one by one, tumbling haphazard down until they disappeared in the murky bottom. Each time she plucked a shard from her hand she winced and sucked at the blood, the wound reopening. She once caught a stray splinter of glass in her gum and cried out, her voice echoing against the cool, grey stone of the mountains. She managed to claw out the bloody fragment, spitting a bit of blood in the water, then removing the last of the glass in quick succession, cringing as she did so. When the last of it was gone, she shoved her hand into the crystal pool and asked aloud for the spirits of water to heal her.

“Please, ancient spirits,” she said, her father’s words in her throat, “Please, take my blood as payment. Heal my wounds.”

Her black blood billowed out into the clear water like a coming storm, more and more, and Tar’ash could not feel the tingling effervescence of it closing the cuts in her hands. She groaned and asked again.

“Please, please, _please_ , spirits, heal my hand, it hurts and it won’t stop bleeding,  
she said imploringly, then added in a small whisper, “It’s scaring me.” Tar’ash was not sure why. Did she think she would bleed to death, or lose her hand somehow? The wounds were not that deep to be sure, and yet she felt a terrible dread and urgency at seeing the black cloud grow ever larger in the water, as though if she held her hand under long enough its darkness would overtake the whole pond. She knew she would be fine if she just went back home and let her father or mother, or even Garad, heal her. Perhaps that was the worst feeling of all; she started to cry.

“I don’t want to go back!” she wailed, “My parents hate my friends and they like Garad better than me! He’s better at being a shaman than me and he’s good at talking to all the grown-ups...everything would be better if they’d only had Garad and not me! They should have drowned me like those kids said!”

Tears fell, and Tari squeezed her wrist, feeling like she had only ever been a problem and a burden for them all. Then, inexplicably, a wave of sympathy fell over her, the feel of someone putting their arm around you in comfort. There was no one there, though...only a gentle sound, or feeling, she couldn’t be sure which, of waves crashing against her chest.

She thought for a moment she felt the spray of water on her face, the rush of a receding wave pulling her under, that helplessness. It was like the tug of sadness in her chest, and soon her soul felt as if it were coming up for air. A familiar tingling sensation tickled the cuts on her hand, and when she lifted it from the black cloud of blood, her wounds were closed.

She thought she ought to celebrate; she had only managed to channel the spirits of water twice before, but she couldn’t bring herself to be cheerful. She was still sad and angry, but it felt as if it would get better. She finally admitted to herself that she’d eventually return to her family and apologize. Her mother would scratch her hair the way she liked, and maybe she and Garad would play snaps; he always let her win when she was sad.

She picked herself up from the flat rocks, dusting the dirt and mud from the knees of her robes, then looked back at the winding dirt path leading up the mountain, limned by small, stone lanterns in the shape of pagoda. She was not a great climber, but Tari knew if she followed the path she’d be fine. She hoped it lead her to the monastery Garad had spoken of, and to the mysterious Mok’Nathal; she refused to return until she’d found him.

The journey uphill was hard, and at last Tari stopped to have a rest at the side of the road, breathing long breaths, somewhat hidden from the light of the lamps. The mountains had been green, it turned out, because they were covered with a forest of bamboo. The tall chutes went up and up, swaying and creaking with the wind, the white light of the gibbous moon filtered green through the leaves, dappling the soft, black earth beneath. Tar’ash’s bare skin was pleasantly cool, and the air smelled of wet leaves, dirt and blossoms from the few scattered trees. She was comfortable, peeling the paper-like bark off a nearby tree, feeling almost dreamy as her eyes searched between the bamboo. That’s when she saw it; a flash of scarlet rushing between the chutes, so fast and quiet that Tari wasn’t even sure she saw it.

She froze; her hand clutched her crutch, and her head shot around, searching for the source. The forest that had moments ago seemed peaceful, now felt eerie; the way the trees moved felt as if they were closing in around her, and the rustle of the leaves in the wind sent shivers up her spine.

 _It could have just been a bird or something_ , she thought, but it did not ease her instincts. Her mother had always told her to listen to those instincts; that they were the spirits of the wild, howling warning in her heart. If it was an animal, was it a dangerous one? It had looked large, perhaps her height. If it was a person, why were they wandering the forest at night, off the path, and moving so quickly and quietly? Would they catch her and take her back home; or worse, did they mean her harm? Tar’ash sat in near silence for long moments, shrunk against the tree and looking about her frantically. She tried to quiet her heavy breath, her racing heart...but the sudden and loud—close—crack of a branch breaking under a heavy foot snapped her into immediate, almost unconscious action. Like a frightened deer, she bolted.

For what seemed like a long time there was nothing but dark green leaves and the sound of them rushing past her as she raced between the bamboo chutes and tree trunks, using her crutch to propel herself along, away from the path and whatever had been approaching. All the trees she passed were the same, she had no point of reference, only she she had push herself left or right to avoid running into anything. She only remembered the feeling that she was suddenly going downhill, then her footing gave out and all she knew was vertigo as she fell down, down, to darkness.

 


	6. The Crutch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In her haste to escape an unseen threat, Tar'ash finds herself in more trouble than when she started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary doesn't say much as to why, but this is one of the most important scenes in the story, and one of my favorites. Did someone say symbolism?

Hitting the ground felt like getting punched all over and all at once. Tari groaned, just laying on the forest floor at first, trying to will away the searing ache and hoping she hadn’t broken anything. When the pain faded to bearability, she managed to take a knee and, reaching for her crutch, she realized it was not there.

Panic struck her. She looked around frantically for it, shuffling in the dirt and leaves; at last she looked up, and her heart sank. There it was, dangling 30 feet above her on the limb of a tree. Her knee buckled, and she sank to the ground and began to wail. Why had she run from the path? There had been no true threat; that flash of red had probably just been a trick of the eye. Now she was here, alone, in pain, unable to walk, with no idea where she was. How would she get back to the brewery now?

 _Maybe I made this happen_ , she wondered, thinking back on when she had thought her family would be better off without her. She hadn’t really meant it...she cried out over and over, her voice loud in the empty forest, praying to the ancestors that someone might come to help her. She wasn’t sure how close she had gotten to the monastery on the mountain, or how far she was from the road, and she became increasingly fearful that no one would find her at all.

Then she felt it again; her instincts jolting her, screaming at her to be afraid. She quieted and looked around, but told herself she was being stupid again. She heard nothing but the sway of the trees. It felt eerily quiet, and more and more she was uneasy. Her head shot around behind her when she heard the rustling of something moving against the underbrush, but it was too late.

A low growl rippled out from the bamboo, and in the dark she saw movement creeping forward towards her. Mirrored eyes flashed in the moonlight; black lips peels back to reveal glinting, yellow teeth. The shadows of the bamboo had hidden its striped, muscular form. Tari cried out and pulled herself back away from it, but the creature’s muscles were coiling. She felt its hunger. It was crouching to strike, and fear froze her, looking only into those hungry yellow eyes.

It happened in a blink. One instant the tiger had been crouching, its claws extending, and the next it was falling to its side, spraying blood. She gasped and slid back, covering her mouth, too surprised to feel relief. She saw the axe; glinting steel with hints of green, before she saw its owner.

He was a hulking creature, too small to be an ogre but bigger than any orc she’d ever seen. He stalked out of the shadows, hooded and predatory, his fist closing around the small axe’s haft, then tugging it from the tiger’s neck with a grunt and the squishing sound of gore. His fist was a pale brown, paler even than she was; his cloak was patterned with soft jade and hunter green. His clothing was black, and covered him from toes to throat. He turned to look at her, and his eyes were the same fierce amber as those of the creature he’d just slaughtered.

“What are you doing out here alone?” he asked her in a harsh, guttural voice, almost...whispered, as if he had not spoken aloud in a long time. Tar’ash didn’t know what to tell him; saying she was angry at her parents didn’t seem like the answer he wanted. When she gave no answer at all, he asked instead, “Where do you come from?”

“Th...the brewery,” was all she could manage. He grunted.

“What’s wrong with your leg?” he asked, pointing at her small, stunted limb with the bloody axe. There was another at his waist, Tar’ash saw, also of Pandaren make.

“It...it doesn’t work,” she said, almost bewildered. It was, oddly enough, not a question people usually asked her directly.

“Doesn’t work?” he asked, apparently perplexed, “Since when?”

“Since always...” Tar’ash answered truthfully, and a little indignantly. There was a long stretch of silence between the two, and eventually the stranger turned from her, wiping his axe on the trunk of a tree, then preparing to hoist the tiger over his shoulder and go. Tar’ash called him back.

“Th-thank you for saving me!” she told him, “Could you do one more thing for me?” He turned back around, the tiger looking hardly larger than a housecat on his massive shoulders, and narrowed his golden eyes at her. There was something unnerving about them, as if they could see into her head...her soul. It made her shrink, but she pressed on. “My crutch...it’s stuck in that tree up there. Can you get it down for me?”

The Mok’Nathal—for that is who he must be, Tar’ash thought—inclined his head upwards at the trees, squinting to see the small, wooden crutch dangling from a branch. He snorted derisively.

“Get it yourself,” he told her, then turned to go again. Tar’ash barked at him again to stop.

“I can’t! I told you, my leg doesn’t work, I can’t climb a tree. You helped me from that tiger, can’t you help me again?” The Mok’Nathal considered this, again studying her with his unnerving eyes.

“It would be difficult for you to climb,” he said, “Not impossible.”

“Is too! I can’t climb or walk or anything. If you won’t help me you should have just let the tiger eat me!”

“Maybe I should have,” he growled. She recoiled; she had expected him to apologize for treating her so harshly, not to _agree_ with her. “If you care so little for your life, sit here and wail like a bleating lamb until something else comes to kill you. If you want to live, then climb the tree.”

“But I _can’t_ ,” she whined, hitting the ground with her fists in frustration. She had imagined meeting the Mok’Nathal much differently. “Why can’t you just help me? It would be easy for you.”

“Doing what’s easy makes you soft and stupid. Are you these things, little girl?”

“No!” Tari protested hotly, wondering if she meant it...was she soft? If she was, would her parents tell her? Would Garad? She grasped the skirts of her robe, looking at her bony, stunted leg. Seeing it had never bothered her more than it did right now. “If I try and climb the tree it’ll take so long that something else will come to eat me before I get it down anyway.”

“I’ll wait here until you retrieve it, then,” he told her, his voice only slightly softer than it had been. There was another long silence as she stared up into the tree, the tiny crutch rotating lazily on the branch that held it in place.

“Do you really think I can?” she asked, quietly. The Mok’Nathal nodded. “It’s really, really far up,” she replied in almost a whisper, still looking above at her destination.

“Just go one branch at a time,” he told her.

Tar’ash bit her lip, and looked across at the Mok’Nathal’s implacable expression(what she could see of it under that hood). She steeled herself, then rolled onto her belly, dug her claws into the earth and pulled herself across the forest floor, using her good leg to push forward to the trunk of tree. She grasped onto underbrush and bamboo chutes, grunting and trying not to think how pathetic she must look. The journey across the ground, slithering like a snake, felt painfully long to Tari, but she could see the trunk of the tree getting closer, bit by bit, and that gave her heart. She was breathing heavy by the time her palms felt the rough texture of the tree’s bark, and she hugged it the way she used to hug her father’s leg when she was small. She looked back at the stranger.

He was seated now, legs crossed and arms extended out atop his knees, the bloody axe clutched casually in one of his huge fists. He was silent, watching her intently. She wet her lips and looked up. The crutch was hardly visible from this angle, and for a moment she panicked, thinking she had crawled to the wrong tree. Looking again, however, she saw it dangling from its perch almost mockingly.

“There’s no branches low enough for me to grab on to...” she told the stranger in a quiet voice.

“You need to get up the trunk.”

“How do I climb a tree trunk with one leg?”

“Dig your claws into the bark,” he suggested, the gruff annoyance creeping back in. Tari shrank. Any bit of anger in his voice frightened her, so she did as she was bid; perhaps she could show him how impossible it was. There were a few false starts; flat slats of bark fell to the ground piece by piece, leaving the creamy-white wood beneath exposed and deep with claw marks. The Mok’Nathal said nothing. She fell twice, but both times she had been so close to the low branch she was aiming for that she immediately got back up to try again.

At last, she got a good purchase on a tight patch of bark, and lifted herself up until she could brace her good foot on the trunk. She remained there for a few strained seconds, suspended above the ground, then she pushed herself up. One arm snaked around the branch, then the next, her body swinging wildly. She dangled there, taking in deep breaths, then with much strain, pulled her body up and onto the branch. She sat up, then beamed over at the Mok’Nathal, wonderfully proud of herself. It was hard to see his face from so far away, but she thought he might be smiling.

“Hard part’s over,” he told her gently, “Now the rest.” This time, Tar’ash didn’t argue, only nodded and looked up, extending her arms towards the next branch up. It was long work, and strenuous, but the Mok’Nathal said nothing when she stopped to catch her breath, only watched her with his focused, yellow eyes. Any time she wanted to complain that she was tired or that her task was impossible, that look kept the words buried in her throat.

Her crutch got closer, and the ground got farther. Her forehead was coated in sweat by the time she finally thought she might be able to grab it, clawing the trunk of the tree to pull herself to one foot. It was just above her, and she looked up at it silhouetted by the moon through the branches, green and white light spiraling down at her through leaves and branches. It was almost like a halo, she thought, as she extended up hand up for it, black against the light. Her torso stretched. She grasped a branch for support and leaned outwards. Her fingertips brushed the soft leather that was wrapped at the crutch’s tip, but she could not grasp it or knock it off its perch.

 _If I could just take a step outwards, I could get it_ , she thought. She looked down once at the long drop, then shut her eyes and shuffled her foot out farther onto the branch. It shuddered, and she held fast as it bobbed up and down for a few seconds. She clenched her teeth and whined nervously, then extended her hand again. No closer than before; if she wanted to reach her crutch, she would need to let go of the branch she was grasping with her other hand. Her heart raced at the thought, her eyes studying her pale knuckles. She started to look down again.

 _No!_ she chided herself, _If I look down I won’t do it, I’ll be too scared. Just let go and then grab it_. She fixed her eyes on the crutch’s silhouette, extended her arm, took a deep breath, and let go.

For a brief moment she felt like she was standing on her own. Then she leaned forward. As she felt her body tipping over, her hand grasped for the crutch. She felt its smooth wood, scrambling in those brief seconds the wrap her fingers around it. The crutch swung back from the force of her grasping hand, then shrank as she began to plummet.

She must have hit every branch she had used to climb up on her way back down. She cracked one elbow, and her thigh scraped against a hard patch of bark. The world felt like it was tumbling all around her, and the vertigo that struck her was so strong she thought she might throw up or pass out. Tari shut her eyes, and her body at last stopped moving.

She’d landed in something softer than the ground, and warmer; she peeled her eyelids back and saw herself looking up into the unmoved eyes of the Mok’Nathal. He put her down, and the tears boiled up from her chest. She didn’t even try to stand.

“Again,” he told her.

“I can’t!” she wept, “I tried and I can’t! It’s impossible, I’m just a stupid cripple, I can’t do anything! Why are you being so mean to me?” Tar’ash buried her face in her hands, feeling the burning of the skin rubbed off on her thigh, the barbed ache of her elbow, the shattering disappointment. She had been so close...

The clatter of wood made her look up, and through her tears she saw her crutch laying on the ground next to her. The Mok’Nathal was in the tree, holding himself up with one muscular arm. He dropped down behind her. Tari’s arms rushed for the crutch, pulling it to her and clutching it to her chest like it was a doll. Having it back in her keeping immediately made her feel safe again. Behind her, she heard the stranger’s heavy footsteps. She turned; he was marching away towards the cover of the trees, the tiger over his shoulder.

“Thank you!” she cried out earnestly, “You helped me a lot.” He stopped for a moment, illuminated by a scattered beam of moonlight, turning his head to look at her one last time. His amber eyes were filled with such disgust and loathing that Tar’ash physically recoiled. His scarred, pale-brown, upper lip curled up from his black jaw.

“No I didn’t,” he snarled, voice thick with revulsion. He turned, leapt downwards, and was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, that guy's not a Mok'Nathal! You lied to me, meany author person! >:(


	7. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an eerie encounter with a mysterious stranger in the mountain to the east, Tar'ash returns to shocking news at the Stormstout Brewery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who, dear readers, was that mean, spooky guy from last chapter making the poor cripple girl climb trees? And what the heck is going on back at Stormstout brewery?!

A young pandaren dressed in deep, dark green from head to toe found her hobbling downhill through the bamboo forest, and hurriedly shuffled her back to the main path and towards the brewery. His name was Bo-bao, and he was in a great rush. Tari struggled to keep pace, but she refused to be carried despite his many insistent offers; she only ever let her father carry her around. Tar’ash found that she was eager to be back with her family. They will have been worried, and while in her anger she had steeled herself against guilt, now she could not deny it. She would apologize when they returned, she decided, and take her punishment without complaint.

As she moved downward, she couldn’t stop thinking about how good the leather of the crutch’s handle felt against her palm. There was such comfort in having it in her grasp again; the encounter with the stranger had proved how much she needed it, and she shuddered to think back on crawling across the ground on her belly, or dangling helplessly from the branch of the tree. _I did climb it, though_ , she admitted. She should have felt pride, but all she could think of was her hand reaching for the crutch, and of the last look the stranger gave her.

The brewery was soon in sight, and while it usually seemed quiet and peaceful, with the slow and steady rhythm of the water-wheel churning, the place now seemed like a buzzing hive, black and white forms moving rushing around the grounds and calling to one another in distressed voices. Had she caused such a commotion, she wondered? Tari had run off before, and there had not been such fanfare. Had she been gone longer than she’d thought?

One tall, broad-chested monk stopped when he spotted her and her companion. “Is that her?” he asked from across the yard, and Bo-bao replied in the affirmative. They closed the gap between them, and the tall monk continued to ask questions even as they walked briskly inside.

“Where did you find her?” he asked Bo-Bao.

“In the bamboo forest out to the east, coming down from the mountain,” Bo-Bao informed him nervously, keeping one eye on Tari.

“Is she hurt?” the tall monk continued.

“No, she’s fine,” Bo-bao responded. Tar’ash had not told him about the scrape on her thigh, too embarrassed to lift her skirt up and show him. The monk looked down at her suspiciously, then back up to the pandaren in green.

“Did she see anything?”

“I...didn’t ask.”

“Did you see anything, little girl?” The monk was talking to her now. Tari thought about the Mok’Nathal(though she was not sure now that was what he had been), but she found she didn’t want anyone to know what happened beneath that tall tree, and not completely sure why. The flash of red came to her thoughts as well, but that seemed too stupid to mention. Tari only shook her head. The monk seemed displeased with that response. “At least she’s back unharmed,” the monk told Bo-bao, who was looking at her with the same sad, sympathetic expression he’d been surreptitiously giving her since he’d found her in the forest. When she caught his eye, he looked away. She heard the soft rumble of her father’s voice down the hall, and something in his tone made her feel cold all over. She moved faster.

“...doing to her? I should be out there looking,” Thrall said, his breath labored.

“We have the whole brewery searching the grounds and surrounding area, old friend,” came Chen’s gentle voice, more sorrowful than Tar’ash had ever thought it could sound, “If Tar’ash or the elf are out there, we’ll find them.”

“Papa?” Tar’ash called, moving at the closest she could get to a run, holding her crutch firmly with both hands. Her father’s voice hitched when he replied.

“Tari?” he called, and then his huge, green form was at the end of the hallway. Tar’ash closed the distance between them and fell against him, hugging his waist. He knelt and took her into his huge arms, hugging her so tightly it hurt.

“Oh! I’m so glad you’re alright, little one,” he whispered to her. His voice sounded almost frail. Her mother had been hard on Thrall’s heels with her arms around them both now, her claws digging into Tari’s shoulder.

“Where were you?” she asked harshly, leaning back and taking Tari by the face with both hands, “Did someone take you?” Tari’s eye were wide and she shook her head.

“No, I just...I was just mad. Why would someone take me? Mama, what’s happening, why’s everyone so upset?”

Her parents looked at each other. Her father let out a long, quavering breath, and her mother closed her eyes.

“Tar’ash,” Thrall began steadily, “It’s...” His voice dropped off and his fist went to his mouth with a sob. His shoulders shook, then he suddenly got to his feet and roared with rage and sorrow, throwing a wave of fire at the wall beside him, then bursting into hot, angry tears. Aggra stood and pulled him back, raising a hand; a soft trickle of water hissed the remains of the fire away. Thrall turned and buried his face in her shoulder. She stroked his back, then looked down at her daughter. Staring up into her mother’s tear-brimmed eyes, Tari never felt so small.

“Tar’ash,” she began in a whisper, “it’s...it’s your brother.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruh-Roh, sounds like bad news for "My Go'el" and Co.


	8. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tari and her family must return to Orgrimmar after a terrible tragedy.

Light was welling up from the horizon like molten tears, painting the heat-warped sky pink and orange. The call of birds echoed out over the gardens, heralding the morning, cheerfully ignorant of the happenings of the night before. The air was cool and wet, the dew sliding down the face of giant leaves likes tears down someone’s cheek. A low mist hung ‘round the small stone table where Aggra and Thrall sat across from Chen Stormstout. Tari sat quietly by the sliding door on a tall stool, and from where she was they looked hazy; faded, like ghosts. As she listened to them talking, Tari was counting the slow, rhythmic thunks of the rocking fountain as it filled with water, then emptied. Filled, then emptied. Filled, then emptied.

“It was Valeera Sanguinar, I’m sure of it,” Thrall said quietly, giving Chen a fierce and stalwart expression, “I saw her leave through the window when I came into the room.” The old brewmaster sighed, his fingers folded atop his round stomach, and nodded.

“My scouts will keep looking, of course, but she is likely in the wind by now,” he admitted, taking off his wide, straw hat and scratching his scalp. Thrall inclined his head and squeezed his hand into a tight fist.

“I should have chased her down and smashed in her skull,” he hissed. Aggra hushed him, kissing his shoulder, and Thrall’s posture relaxed somewhat. His thumb stroked his mate’s knuckles.

“I cannot say how sorry I am that this has happened inside my walls, old friend,” Chen said, his tone speaking the truth of the words, “Do you...have any idea of the reason?”

Clutching hands, her parents turned to look at each other. Aggra turned to Chen, her brow bulging with wrinkles, pushed together by her mahogany eyebrows.

“When we were in Orgrimmar, we sat down with the Warchief...to discuss the future of the Horde. Vol’jin has no children, and no prospects for any, so he...we...decided that he would name Garad as his successor. And the elf woman...this...Valeera...Go’el tells me she is a close friend of the King of Stormwind.”

Chen sucked in a breath, his wide stomach bulging outwards. His eyes closed for a few seconds, then opened. “I hardly dare to utter it, but...you think this a political move on the part of the Alliance?”

“Of course it is!” Tari’s father roared, slamming his fist on the table, causing the gentle china ro ring, “After Garrosh, they don’t want another orc on the throne; Jaina told me as much. I knew they’d be angry...but this?”

Tar’ash heard her father’s voice crack, and she saw the shape of her mother leaning into him. In a harsh whisper, he uttered, “They are going to pay the dearest price.” Tari shuddered and pulled her legs up to her chest; she had never been frightened of him. There was a long silence, then the door beside her slid open and a Pandaren marched out, hardly noticing the girl crouched against the wall. He approached Chen and whispered something in his ear. The old brewer nodded, and with some difficulty, stood.

“Dear friends...you are welcome here as long as you need, but know we have made the preparations you requested,” Chen told them quietly. Thrall stood, pulling Aggra up with him.

“Then we will leave immediately,” he told Chen, steadying his voice and squaring his shoulders, then marching for the main gate. Barely a step in, Chen tried to dissuade him.

“Perhaps you should take some time to grieve-” Thrall spun on him, fire in his eyes.

“I will grieve when my son’s murderers are _in the ground_!” he roared, and his last words echoed out across the gardens, shattering against the stones again and again until it faded into the mist. Chen looked down to his feet. Tar’ash buried her face in her knees.

“Very well,” the old brewer said in a sorrowful, resigned voice, “Cho-ma, lead us to the wagon.” The pandaren beside him bowed respectfully, then almost floated past in his white robes. Aggra turned to Tari.

“Come, my heart, this way. We depart for Orgrimmar.” For an instant, Tar’ash thought to ask, “What about Garad?” but a breath of a second later she knew that was a stupid question; he was coming with them. That was what the wagon was for. She instead said nothing, only steadied her crutch and slid carefully from her perch on the stool, then hobbled slowly over to join her parents. Cho-ma lead them out of the garden gate to the main road, and the whole walk Tari found herself clutching her mother’s skirt the way she used to when she was younger. Aggra didn’t pluck her hand off this time, though...only slowed her pace to match Tari’s.

The walk was mostly silent until they reached the road, then Thrall and Aggra spoke quietly about the way to the Orgrimmar portal at Honeydew Village. A low rumble, and wood creaking, heralded the cart’s arrival. Tar’ash saw it from across the road, and sucked in a breath.

Inside the wagon was a ceremonial sheet shaped like a boy. It looked the way statues looked to Tari—pale, stone creatures frozen in time, a cold mockery of life. That’s not my brother, she thought. That thing wasn’t the boy who mussed her hair and spun her around on his shoulders. It didn’t know how to play snaps, or the perfect place to catch crawfish, or how to get out of a keep between the walls.

Before she knew it she was limping over, slow at first, then fast, her crutch digging into the dry gravel of the road in just the right way to gain momentum. Distantly, she heard her feather yell for her to stop, but before he could catch her, her fist grasped the sheet and pulled it into the dust.

Only one eye was open - half lidded and glossed over. He wouldn’t look at her, instead staring off into the hills, as if he was not here with her, but there—far away. His lips were cracked with black, parted just slightly, his tongue pressing up against his teeth and slightly out, stiff and solid. His skin was the dull color of rot. His nostrils didn’t flare, his chest didn’t rise, and an angry wound split across his throat like the scar in the barrens.

She could see inside his neck, see his severed veins shriveled closed, the wiring that had kept him alive cut apart. The skin on his throat was wrinkled and puckered, and the inside was crusted over with dry, black blood. She could not tear herself away from that darkness; she stared into that cavernous rend as if it would pull her in, and she’d fall forever. She felt her face tighten, the wail building from her stomach and bubbling up through her throat, and soon hot tears were covering her cheeks.

Strong arms went around her and she was lifted from the ground, given a shoulder to bury her face into. Her father’s voice rumbled in her ear, cracked with sorrow. “Don’t look, Tari,” he told her, “Don’t look, little one, close your eyes, forget what you saw...”

But she knew then that she would never forget that sight...it had burned its way into her soul.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INTO HER SOOOOOOOOOUL yeah it's kinda hokey, WHATEVS, DEAR READERS. What. Evs.


	9. Dirge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash attends her brother's funeral in Orgrimmar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice I only refer to Thrall as Go'el in dialogue, not in prose. That's because his name's fucking Thrall, God Damnit.

The embers of Garad’s funeral pyre glittered up into the vast, black sky of Durotar, twinkling away like shooting stars. The heat stung Tari’s eyes, and she squeezed them shut in rhythm with the drums of the Lok’aken. Aggra’s strong fingers stroked her hair and shoulder with a comforting pressure. Tari clutched her mother’s skirts, listening to her father a few feet away, speaking with the Warchief.

“Send word to the spies and informants in Stormwind,” her father whispered, his voice barely audible over the low, thundering dirge, “I want to know where Wrynn is sheltering her.”

“If he be sheltering her,” Vol'jin answered, keeping his voice respectfully low, “It be soon to know surely if da King is behind this.”

“Of course he is! Valeera is his creature, and the only one he’d trust with this ugly task.”

Tar’ash blinked her watery eyes open and saw that Vol'jin was looking right at her. It was a look she’d only recently begun to notice in people’s eyes when the scrutinized her: pity. It made her angry, and she scowled and buried her face in the leather of Aggra’s robe.

“Dis can wait until tomorrow, Thrall,” the Warchief said gently, but firmly. Tari heard her father breath, and for a few moments there was only the slow rhythm of the drums, the jingling of bells at the feet of the dancers, the low voices singing in unison. The sound of the song yawned wide, and Tar’ash peered back out at her father. He could hardly stand still. He would look at the ground, then to the side, then for the briefest moment at the pyre and then to the ground again, scowling.

“Listen,  we’ve already waited too long,” her father hissed to Vol'jin, “I came here expecting things would have already been put in motion, only to find you’ve done nothing? We need to get to Valeera before Varian learns that we know it was her.”

Vol'jin sighed, his heavy fists clasped behind his back, and he turned his head to Tari with that same look in his eyes. She buried her face again and listened as the two spoke through the song, through the procession, and in the keep as her mother carried her away to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If that made you uncomfortable, then I've done my job...*rubs hands together maniacally*


	10. Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash dreams of her brother.

Tar’ash spent the next day sleeping as often as her body would allow, burying herself in the heat and scent of her bedfurs, isolated in her temporary room at Grommash Hold. Her mother brought her meals, pulling her out of sleep and hovering over her until her food was eaten, dragging her out of bed to zombie-walk around the dark-lit halls of Grommash hold.

Tar’ash’s dull expression caught her muttered reprimands from her mother. She would touch Tari’s back with the pads of her fingers to keep her from slouching, herself shoulders back, walking too-quickly through the short hallways. When this caused her to nearly run into other denizens of the keep, Aggra’s thumb and forefinger would pinch Tari’s neck hard and make her look up. Anyone they met would offer condolences, and when they did Aggra’s chest would puff out farther and her grip on Tari’s neck would tighten painfully. She thanked them through clenched teeth.

Once they’d walked past, Aggra’s fingers loosened, and she grumbled at how Tar’ash’s sullen attitude would reflect on her father as she massaged the pinching pressure away. Marching briskly down one hallway, Tari heard her father’s voice buzzing, then bellowing for blood and vengeance, a geist of the tranquil peacemaker that had raised her. Aggra stopped, dug her claws into Tari’s back, told her to stand up straight, and turned them around.

When they returned to her room, Tari fell into the sweat-soaked furs, her crutch clattering to the ground, as Aggra snarled at her from the doorway to stop acting like a baby and do something with herself. When Tari asked her what, her mother’s face contorted into a hideous mask of rage, her eyes becoming glassy, glinting ghoulishly in the brazier light.

“Just...figure it out!” she said in cracked snarl, then slammed the door behind her. Tari buried her face into her furs and wept, whispering to herself that she wanted to go home, not knowing where such a home was. When the tears ran out she slept, hoping when she woke that it would somehow be over.

That evening, as the hot sun sunk beneath Orgrimmar’s clawing skyline, she dreamt that she was in Alterac, wrapped in layers of fur and leather, digging the foot of her crutch into the fresh snow as she ran. Around her were the tall, flat palms of cliffs reaching up to the overcast sky, and trees like spikes lancing up from the white ground. Before her was a broad lake, its icy surface dusted with snow and veined with white. She called out for Garad, and his name echoed out among the stone. She thought she heard him answer, far out ahead of her, but his voice was hollow; muffled somehow. She called out again, and followed the sound out onto the lake’s surface.

She moved carefully, her crutch slipping some with each wary step she took. Somehow, she knew the ice beneath was solid; thick; implacable. She called again to Garad, and heard his voice just ahead of her, in the center of the wide lake, but she didn’t see him. Was he playing a trick on her? Hiding somewhere she couldn’t see? She called out again, annoyed.

“That’s not funny, Garad! Where are you?” she huffed, turning around and searching the empty landscape. She heard, feeling both far-off and close to her, her name in her brother’s voice, her feet buzzing. Something clenched at her heart then, and, lip quivering, she looked down. Garad’s face, mouth and eyes wide and wild with fear, was there beneath her feet, distorted by the thick, pale ice. His throat was split open, wide and black and empty. A mighty crack roared out in the quiet landscape and Tari lurched down, waving an arm for balance. The ice began to split apart beneath her feet, tilting and sinking. Another mighty snap sounded loud in her ears and then Garad’s icy tomb bobbed under her weight, spilling her into the freezing water. The shock of the cold made her try to scream, but the water silenced her. A voice, far away, whispered the way a snake slithered. “Give up,” is crooned, “Give up.” Thrashing, she sank slowly down into the black depths, Garad’s silhouette floating above her, getting farther and farther away, and the voice...getting closer.

She woke with a start and reached out, grasping the arms that had been trying to wake her. Her mother looked surprised for a moment, then annoyed, holding her by the wrists. Tari gulped in the hot, stale air of the room, and when she had steadied enough to really examine her mother’s expression, she realized something was wrong. Aggra took her daughter’s hand and gripped tight, trying and failing to make her voice calm.

“We have to go to the Valley of Honor, Tar’ash,” she whispered, and her throat undulated as she swallowed, eyes sunken and lips tight, folding down, “Your father has challenged the Warchief to Mak’gora.”


	11. Mak'Gora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrall meets Warchief Vol'jin in single combat.

The rumble of the crowd surrounded the thin entryway, feet stomping, throats screaming, voices murmuring, all folding together into a dull, encompassing roar above Tari’s head. The air was fresh and electric, and outside the open arena was dark. Tari sucked red dust into her lungs with every breath, sitting on the dry floor of dirt and hay, hugging her legs, watching her father strip off his robe.

“You don’t have to do this, Go’el,” her mother told him forcefully, “We can work with Vol’jin, just give it some time-”

“He’s wasted enough time already, Aggra,” Thrall stated sternly, pulling the heavy prayer beads over his head and letting them spill from his fingers into the dirt. Aggra dug her nails into his bicep.

“The time for revenge is coming, my heart, but you need to accept what has happened to our son,” she whispered. Tar’ash had never thought she’d hear her mother sound so desperate. She pulled her knees closer into her chest.

“I’m doing this for Garad, Aggra,” Thrall growled, his crystal-blue eyes fierce and angry as he leaned down to lift the Doomhammer, “I thought you of all people would understand that.”

“Garad was important to both of us-”

“He’s my blood. My _family_. He’s _everything_!” Thrall roared, throat hoarse, leaning over Aggra menacingly as far off thunder rolled, melting in among the rumble of the crowd. Tari’s mother leaned back, but stood her ground.

“What about the child we still have?” she asked, shaking, “What about Tar’ash?”

“Tar’ash will understand-” Thrall began dismissively.

“How can she if you won’t be there for her?” Aggra asked, baring her fangs.

“You were the one who said she needed to grow up-”

“Not like this! Not left to bear Garad’s death alone while you wage a war.” Outside the entryway, Tari could see Vol’jin’s lanky silhouette facing them across the arena as a lithe witch doctor rubbed oil down the shadow hunter’s glaive. Droplets of rain began to cut through the air between them.

“You’ll be there for her-”

“ _I can’t!_ ” Aggra howled, covering her lips with her hand as she choked back a whimper, “If you die, Go’el, I can’t...” Thrall’s posture softened, and he slipped his meaty palm against Aggra’s cheek, thumbing away a tear.

“I have to do this, Aggra,” he told her, sternly, but not unkindly. Her back bent forward in surrender, and she nodded, pulling a bottle of oil from her robe. As Tari’s mother poured the oils into her sinewy palm, her body lurched with a swallowed sob. Aggra’s face twisted with anger then relaxed, and she massaged the oil against Thrall’s body, hands tracing familiar paths, finding and gripping his hips before reluctantly snaking off. At last, Thrall offered the Doomhammer, and Aggra caressed oil across its ancient, scuffed metal, making it gleam. Her fingertips brushed against the relief of a frostwolf’s head, and Thrall reached an arm around her waist and kissed her. Aggra’s hands lifted to pull him to her, but he was already breaking away, turning and marching into the ring. Aggra nearly followed him out, stopping only at the roughly-hewn wooden archway clutched into place by rope and clay. When Tari’s father stepped into the arena, the crowd’s voice rose to a din. He marched to meet Vol’jin as if he couldn’t hear them.

Thunder roared ominously, closer now, swelling up to the arena from behind them. Tari shivered and clasped her hands around the crutch at her side, squeezing the hard wood in her fist, feeling how smooth it was, how it didn’t give. She pushed herself to her feet and hobbled over to Aggra, who slipped a hand atop her head without taking her eyes off Thrall’s broad, green back. Vol’jin stalked forward to meet him.

Her father threw back his head and roared, joined soon by the masses in the stands, rain coming down steadily now, darkening the mud of the ring. Vol’jin’s thick fingers clutched his glinting glaive, silent, lips tight. The combatants began to circle one another, and Tari reached her arms around her mother’s waist, waiting breathlessly for someone to strike. Rain poured from the sky, Thrall lifted the Doomhammer over his head, and then a sound as if the building was cracking in half shook the entire stadium. The arena lit up with blinding blue light, and when Tari could see again he father had charged.

Vol’jin leapt aside as the Doomhammer slammed down on the muddy earth, shaking the ground and spraying mud out in a halo. Vol’jin turned the glaive down towards Thrall’s mighty shoulders, but Tari could see a split-second of hesitation in his muscles. It was all her father needed. His claws buried themselves in the earth beneath him, and his thick, corded muscles bulged with strain as he pulled up a sheer rock wall in front of him, knocking the Warchief onto his back.

Thrall got to his feet with a clean, liquid movement and clutched the Doomhammer in one meaty paw, blue electricity skittering across its metal surface. He moved around the clay wall he’d called up from the earth and descended on the prone Warchief. A whining sound, like wind-up Goblin toys, began quiet then crescendoed to a screech as her father called more and more lightning to his hammer. Vol’jin rolled, but it was not enough; the hammer came down against the earth a foot from where the troll’s chest had been seconds ago. From the Doomhammer’s head cracked a great charge of blue lightning , climbing instantly to the heavens. The force blew Vol’jin fifty feet back against the walls of the arena. The crowd gasped. Aggra and Tari simultaneously grasped each other tighter.

“He would have killed him,” her mother breathed, and Tari buried her face into her mother’s robes. She couldn’t see another dead body. She didn’t want to watch that moment where someone living and breathing went limp and soulless. She heard the crashes, the cheers, the song of metal on the wind. With her eyes closed she saw the fuzzy image of Garad’s cavernous, opened throat swallowing her. From the black depths there she heard the low growl of a voice.

_Give up._

    Behind her eyelids she began falling down into the darkness over and over feeling her stomach lurch until she had to open her eyes just enough that the world was a blurry, fluttering sunset

“Give up.” She heard it again, clearer but farther away. Tari whimpered.

“I said give up, Vol’jin! Concede!” the roar came, ringing against the arena walls, and Tari finally realized it was her father, howling over the crowd’s hushed silence. She looked up to see Vol’jin prone on the ground, his glaive far out of reach, and Thrall with his hammer raised over his shoulder, ready to strike. Vol’jin’s long chest heaved up and down for long, terrible moments while her father’s fist shook.

A frustrated sound keened from the orc’s throat up and out between his clenched tusks, and Thrall began to wind the hammer back for a strike when Vol’jin’s hands came up in supplication. “Alright...” he said in a voice quiet and mournful; resigned, “Alright, Thrall...I give up.” Thrall’s hammer slowly came to rest on his shoulder before turning away from Vol’jin and looking up at the crowd.

He took sure steps, shoulders back, and projected his bellowing voice for all to hear. “Vol’jin has been defeated. Raise your voices, sons and daughters of the Horde. Your Warchief has returned!”

As the arena shook with the cries of Thrall’s citizens, he turned and extended a hand towards Tar’ash and Aggra, beckoning them to join him in his victory. Aggra’s fingers pinched Tari’s neck, pulling her daughter up as she lifted her own chin and pushed back her shoulders. “Stand up straight, girl,” she said in a raspy whisper, then pulled Tari out with her into the rain.


	12. Aken'arok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valeera Sanguinar is brought before the King of Stormwind.

Chainmail fingers dug into her soft, thin arms as the rain ricocheted off their glittering helms and onto her bare skin. Water had soaked through her hood and into her hair, which clung to her face and neck making her itch. She couldn’t reach to brush it away, each arm taken by the burly watchers dragging her beneath the 30-foot statue of a glorious, armored man with the Ghost Wolf’s face. Valeera had gotten used to calling him “Your Majesty” but when she whispered his name behind her eyes he was always “Lo’gosh.”

  
The roar of the flash storm circled around and behind her when the guards walked her into the archway of Stormwind’s palace. It thundered behind her like a stampede, soon drowned out by the clatter of heels on polished stone. She hated it here. There were too many right angles, too many brightly-lit corridors, too many people in clean, white silk and gleaming steel. It felt like looking up at that statue; like calling Lo’gosh “Your Majesty.”  
Just like always, though, when he turned to her and smiled, soft-lipped with crape-paper wrinkles and sleepy eyes, all that washed away and she felt at ease despite being bruised, bloodied, and held against her will by two guards. She shrugged her cold, clammy shoulders as the king ordered the guards to release her, and stood up straight, trying to look presentable despite being soaked from head-to-toe and shivering.

  
“Your Majesty,” she said, almost mockingly.

  
“Varian,” he told her for the hundredth time, as if that was any more his name. They’d been doing this dance for years; it would have felt strange if he hadn’t corrected her.

  
“You’re injured,” he said, thinning his lips and trying to read her with his eyes. She didn’t have the energy to smirk at him.

  
“I went to a Horde caravan to nab some travel supplies. Soon as I said my name they turned on me, in a snap, like that. Couldn’t even talk before they got the metal out, I had to run, and even then I caught lead on my shoulder and this shiner here from a club.” Valeera reached up and gingerly touched the smooth, puffy bruise under her eye.

  
“A misunderstanding?” put in a gentle voice along with footsteps behind her. Lo’gosh’s stately boy, shoulders back looking graceful and easy, closed a book with slow, careful motion and approached her on her side. Valeera didn’t think she’d ever seen him not smiling, and she swore everywhere he walked he had that golden glow around him that paladin’s sometimes had. If anyone on Azeroth had the Light’s grace, it was Anduin Wrynn.

  
"I've seen misunderstandings before, kid," Valeera grumbled, "They called me ‘aken’arok.’ After I ran off, they tried to _hunt me down_. Then I come here and your goons scoop me up before I’m a rat’s whisker into the city. What’s going on, Varian?”

  
The King of Stormwind thinned his lips again and looked down at the water Valeera was dripping onto his clean, marble floor, then back up at her. From his thick breastplate, he drew the raw, tawny parchment she knew they pressed out in Durotar. The wax seal was a cracked, cobalt wolf’s head.

  
“Thrall is Warchief again,” Lo’gosh rumbled, his skin folding up between his brows, “He thinks you, Valeera, murdered his son, Garad, in Pandaria. This missive demands that I hand you over to the Horde...or they will march on Stormwind.”

  
Valeera’s lips parted, frozen, looking across at the set of plate armor with Lo’gosh’s face, numb.  
“Thrall...he wouldn’t start a war over this, Father, surely-” began the prince, leaning forward, looking as surprised as she felt. Lo’gosh cut the boy off with a look.

  
“I know he would,” the King said smoothly, looking Anduin in the eye, “because if someone killed my son, so would I.” That quieted the Prince, and he shrank back, defeated. Varian turned back to the rogue.  
“I have to ask, Valeera-”

  
“It wasn’t me,” she blurted out, shaking her head, “I swear, it wasn’t me, I want the Horde and Alliance gettin’ along, why would I kill Thrall’s kid?” For a few long, terrible moments, Lo’gosh looked at her with steely eyes, trying to read her like a convoluted sentence he didn’t catch the meaning of the first time. Valeera couldn’t take him looking at her that way, and she dipped her head. He wasn’t Lo’gosh anymore; he was a king that had to take care of his people before all else. Measured against the weight of a war, their friendship meant next to nothing. Didn’t make the thought of being handed over to a mob of angry orcs any shinier. That big softy of a shaman angry enough to start a war...what’d that even look like? It made Valeera shudder.

  
Then, the comforting weight of a heavy, gloved hand on her shoulder. She looked up, and Varian was smiling at her.  
“I believe you, Valeera,” he said, rubbing her shoulder, “My men will get you a room and a dry change of clothes. I’ll write the Warchief and tell him the Alliance will help find his son’s true killer. Once the real culprit is captured, this will all be over.” She returned his smile with her own, crooked and weary, but grateful. She felt the presence of someone to her side, and she turned seeing Anduin’s interminable smile.  
“Worry not, Valeera,” he said, with a voice like a quilt, warm and soft, “Thrall’s angry now, but when he calms down he’ll see reason.”


	13. See Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No it's cool guys he'll definitely see reason just give him some time.

5 Years Later

 

 

“Send me away?” Tar’ash breathed, her long fingers tightening around the grip on her crutch, “But Papa, I-” Her father’s heavy green hand lifted as he let out a deep sigh. He looked the same as he had since the day he returned as Warchief – exhausted. Tari’s expression soured at the dismissive gesture, but she closed her mouth just the same.  
“This wasn’t a fluke, Tari...The Alliance is closing in on our borders, and it’s not safe for you outside Orgrimmar’s walls,” he told her as a Sin’dorei’s heeled boots clacked forward and presented him a parchment. Thrall looked it over as Tar’ash thinned her lips and pushed her shoulders back.

  
“Malla and I caught her, though,” she insisted, a bit of teeth showing in her smile, “And it’s not like I went out by myself...I had my friend and elements to help me.” She looked to him, brows reaching for her hairline, as a long silence stretched between them. Thrall’s cobalt eyes scanned the page presented to him as his daughter’s smile faded.  
“Went out against my will,” Thrall mumbled as he took the quill from the elf and signed it with perfunctory flicks of his wrist. The Blood-Elf nodded and left, walking past Tari as she glared at him over her lifted shoulder.  
“If you taught me to fight I could go out whenever I wanted-”

  
“Shamanism is not about fighting, Tar’ash,” the Warchief rumbled, “And it’s not about you going wherever you please, either.”

  
“You can’t keep me in here!” she protested, voice raised, reaching around herself with her other arm and digging her claws into the wood of her crutch. Thrall let out a long sigh through flared nostrils, looking at her with dull, lidded eyes.

  
“I know I can’t. That’s _why_ you’re going to Nagrand,” he told her gently. Tar’ash opened her mouth, lips curled back over sharp teeth, “But I-...” She stopped. She blinked. “Nagrand?” she asked, voice heightening and the sides of her mouth turning up for just a moment. For the first time in recent memory, her father smiled wide, pushing the wrinkles up at the edge of his eyes.

  
“To stay with your grandmother,” he told her, “You’re right, it’s...time you got proper shamanistic instruction, but your mother is on the front and I’m too busy here to give you the attention you need. Since you’re set on sneaking out of the city at every opportunity…” Thrall gave her a stern look, and Tari bit her lip and sunk her head into her shoulders, “...Nagrand will be a good place for you to learn without threat from the war.”

  
The War. When Varian Wrynn had refused to turn over Valeera Sanguinar to the Horde’s custody, insisting her innocence, the two faction’s tenuous relations had finally snapped under the weight of her brother’s death. The overcast day the warships sailed for the Eastern Kingdoms, she was dodging peons and grunts on the docks of Bladefist Bay to give her mother a parting gift. Aggra was bellowing orders from the aft of the steel warship, _Shaman’s Wrath_ , the mighty tailwind eagerly pulling at the ragged, red sails. The spirits of wind, so long her friends, were bent on taking her mother away from her.

  
Tari had hobbled up just as the mariners pulled the gangway up, and at last Aggra had noticed her frantically waving a clattering doll in the air. It was a talbuk, wooden limbs connected loosely with string, that had been Aggra’s when she was a girl. She’d given it to Tari as a child - to keep her safe, she’d said - and howled curses at a seven-year-old Tari when the girl had painted its feet blue. Tar’ash dug her crutch into the damp wood, wound back her arm, and threw the doll. Tari had trusted the wind to carry it the rest of the way to Aggra’s strong hands, but instead her mother grabbed frantically for wooden creature as its limbs flailed in the air just out of her reach, then fell with hardly a sound into the dark, choppy water. Her mother had given her a hard look as the ship drifted away, so quickly. She had sat at the edge of the dock until long after the fleet had sunk into the horizon, and hobbled back to Grommash Hold much later, soaked to her shoulders and caked in mud, wailing to her worried father that she couldn’t find it. After she had been cleaned up and calmed down, she wrote Grennesh about it, secretly as had all her letters to him been since her time in Pandaria. He said nothing in his reply about her penned words being distorted with brine. That was 4 years ago. Since then she had only spoken to her mother in letters, where Tari could not look her in her soft, coy eyes or feel her strong, sure grip on her shoulder.

  
“When do I leave?” Tari asked Thrall, not too eagerly. He smiled gently.  
“As soon as you like. I’ve written Ryal and told her to expect you,” he rumbled, “I know your birthday is at the end of the week, so I imagine you’ll want to wait at least that long.”

“I can leave the morning after the moonrise celebration and sleep on the way there. Will you...come and visit me?” she asked haltingly. Thrall’s smile faded to nothing.

  
“If I have the time, of course I will, my heart,” he said quietly, and Tar’ash’s gaze moved from his to the floor. When she left a week later, her things packed on the side of her riding wolf, she hugged her father as hard as she could, and he had kissed the top of her wild, auburn hair, and said “I will miss you, little one” in a hushed, quavering voice. He’d strapped her thinner leg against the side of the saddle, patted the Frostwolf behind its ears, and whispered something to it in the voice he used when he spoke with the spirits. Tar’ash rode away, and her wolf almost buckled for all the times she looked back over her shoulder.


	14. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tar'ash arrives in Garadar and receives a birthday gift from a mysterious stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, kids. Welcome, both new and continuing readers. Your comments inspire me to actually work on this.

Clouds the color and bursting shape of inkgrapes slunk over the Pale Lady, pocked and pregnant in the sky over Garadar. Tar’ash’s moonrise celebration had already happened in the capital, but the Greatmother of Garadar, Ura, a plump woman with a trilling voice, had insisted they have another when she arrived, so she might have presents when she moved into her grandmother’s clay hut.

Her mother would have been the Greatmother here in time, if she had not left to be with her father. Aggra spoke often of Garadar and of Tar’ash’s great-grandmother, Geyeh. She died when Tari was young, and she barely remembered her. Her grandfather, Murog, she had known a bit longer, but he had passed on to the ancestors as well, and the only grandparent she had left was her mother’s mother, Ryal, a sharp-tongued shaman that, while stern, Tar’ash got on well with, for they understood each other in a way few others could.

When Tar’ash had arrived by wolf, word was sent to Ryal, but by the time her grandmother found her, Tari was surrounded by Garadar’s curious denizens. The only orcs in the village she saw that didn’t approach her were a tall orc with long, black hair, skulking behind a hunched, hoary elder with a walking stick. They seemed to stop and eye the crowd, then move to the road and into the wilds.

At last, Ryal came to her rescue, barking at the crowd and shooing them away with her cane like they were a flock of hungry birds. They parted in a similar way. Greatmother Ura, however, kept heedlessly squawking on until Jorin, their grizzled cyclops of a chief, pulled her away. Ryal sighed with exaggerated relief, and Tari covered her smile. Ryal stuck the cane hard in the dusty earth, and Tari felt a percussion thrum in her chest. The cane stood on its own. Her grandmother embraced her tightly before retrieving it and leading her to the hut. Tar’ash had forgotten what a relief it was to have someone who walked at the same slow pace.

She had since settled and gotten ready for the second moonrise celebration of her 15th year, and was now seated at the center of a huge circle, surrounded on all sides by strangers. Her circle had been small in Orgrimmar; just her father, her best friend Malla, and a few more acquaintances. Here, she was sure Ura must have invited the whole village.

"I think we can declare the moon at its highest," the Greatmother announced, "Tar'ash, your fourteenth year is now complete, and your fifteenth begins." The shamaness tossed cool, white sand over Tar’ash as the attendants of the party called out well-wishes. Tari giggled, shaking it out of her wiry, auburn hair. A few member of the circle stood to give her gifts. Ura told her she’d gotten her a windchime, and Tari could hear it clinking dully inside the brown paper as she sat the unopened gift beside her. Her own Grandmother’s gift was wrapped in fine, supple leather. “What is it?” she asked customarily.

“Supplies for your training, girl,” Ryal said, chin high and sharp teeth visible through barely-parted lips, “Candles, incense, some hash and oils. Nothing fancy.” Tar’ash thanked her, and placed the bundle next to the windchime, looking forward to opening it when the celebration was over and she was back in her room. The last person to bring her a gift was, upon closer inspection, the tall boy she’d seen earlier in the village. The soft buzz of whispers floated up from the circle as he approached her, and she stood. It was hard to tell because his black hair fell over his face and he was looking at the ground, but Tari thought he might be younger than she’d suspected, perhaps even her own age. The gift, wrapped in stiff, pressed, brown parchment and tied up with hemp, was tucked under his arm.

“Hello,” she said, smiling and leaning down to try and catch his eyes, “I’m Tari.”

"I know," was all he said. His voice was velvety deep and quiet. A gentle wind teased at his long, coal-black hair, whistling in the silence as dozens of eyes watched them standing in the circle in silence. Tar’ash laughed nervously and asked, “What’s your name?” He didn’t answer her immediately, his fingers moving along the hempen twine of the gift. At last, he spoke again.

"I got this for you." He thrust the package into her hands, and it clattered as she shifted on her crutch to take it. She smiled unsurely and thanked him.

"What is it?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

"A doll," he told his feet. Tari simpered at him sheepishly.

"I'm a little old for dolls," she told him. He seemed to shrink into himself even more, nodded to her clumsily and stalked away. He didn’t even sit back down, but instead walked from the circle and tore down the hill. Tari blinked. The others watching him and whispering until he was gone. She looked to her grandmother, who shrugged.

It was forgotten when the drummers began. The circle collapsed on itself as the denizens moved in to dance, but Tar’ash collected her gifts under her arm and walked to Ryal. “I feel bad leaving so soon, but travelling for days has made me really tired,” she lied. Her grandmother smiled wryly and slapped her cane against Tari’s crutch, making it clack.

“It’s alright,” she said, voice thick with the Mag’hari accent, “I hate dancing, too. Let’s go home.” Tar’ash smiled, relieved, and the pair wound around the hill and back to Ryal’s hut.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who was that creeper? And he got her a _doll?_ Double creeper!


End file.
